"Simon Marlow"
No, the GHC version *is* endian-independent. But it's not word-size independent, so moving a binary file from a machine with a 32-bit Int to a machine with a 64-bit Int won't work (unless you avoid Int and stick to fixed-size types and Integer).
Appears to me that 64 and 32 bit Ints are going to cause trouble no matter what, since a 32 bit Int may overflow on reading a 64 bit Int - I don't see how they can be made compatible. I'm not sure this is important. I think (deriving) Binary should only be used for temporary storage when you have complete control over both ends (e.g. messages in a distributed application), not for storing state to disk. Small changes to the program will almost ceratinly break it, and being able to cope with previous versions will lead to all kinds of maintenance headaches. Much better with a well specified format, and apporpriate Read/Show classes (or similar). Which as a bonuus gives you a human-readable format. This is based on my (bad) experiences with MFC's Serialize functionality, perhaps Binary is better. -kzm -- If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants